The Truly Integrated Circuit Is Printed and Flexible
For 40 years, so called integrated circuits have integrated little more than transistors, diodes and sensors onto one piece of material but now there are much more integrated circuits arriving where most electrical and electronic components are co-deposited on flexible substrates.
Those flexible substrates are key, because this new electronics will be affordable and desirable on everything from apparel to human skin and electrical and consumer packaged goods, where surfaces are only rarely flat.
Savvy designers, seeking to use the new electronics to create "The iPod of labels", or some other blockbuster product, think of the flexible substrate as part of functioning of the product. For example, there are flexible films that emit and detect ultrasound, act as loudspeakers or change shape under an electrical field. The latter use electroactive polymer film and the recent purchase of Artificial Muscle Inc AMI by Bayer MaterialScience is a nice reminder that there are plenty of exits for venture capitalists backing these new printed electronics companies.